The Signs of Air and Water
by Merlin Missy
Summary: It's not a relationship. Except it probably is. Warhawk Aquagirl futurefic.
1. Chapter 1

The Signs of Air and Water (1/3)  
a Justice League Unlimited story  
by Merlin Missy  
Copyright 2005  
PG-15

All characters and situations are the property of DC, Warner Bros., and/or Milestone. No infringement on their work is intended or should be inferred.

Summary: It's not a relationship. Except it probably is. Warhawk/Aquagirl futurefic.

Notes: Spoilers up through "Epilogue," some speculation regarding the culmination of the current JLU season. Set primarily in the "Batman Beyond" timeframe, but based almost solely on "The Call," because I am lame. Continuity notes: not a direct sequel to anything else, does draw upon my general pool of Stuff That Happened, no prior reading material required. (Although really, Nancy Brown's "The Arrangement" and TheCryingWillow's "The Engagement" are so very much the literary parents of this story, 'cause we keep singing the same song.)

And yes, this is most self-indulgent thing I've allowed myself to write in, oh, at least a week.

* * *

Chapter One

* * *

When her breath has come back to her and her heart is no longer racing, she slides from atop him to snuggle against his side. The familiar odors of his sweat and his deodorizer permeate the thin blanket she's pulled up to her chin. She has never felt so safe, not since she was a tiny girl playing with the hairs in her father's golden beard. 

"This isn't going to last," she says quietly.

He stiffens, the arm he has wrapped around her suddenly like stone. "Merina ... "

"You know why."

"Triton'll have kids soon." Rex rolls over, slithers down his bed just enough so that his face is next to hers. He looks very silly, and very dear, and Merina wants to take his strong chin in her hands and kiss him tenderly until they both fall asleep. She hopes she can, later, after she's made him understand.

"He doesn't yet. And when he does, it's still my duty to marry well and produce an heir or three."

"It's stupid."

"Thank you," she said. "What I wanted more than anything tonight was for you to spit on ten thousand years of my people's traditions."

"Sorry." His face is contrite in the dim light. She knows he doesn't mean it, that he is direct, and clear, and kind, and she knows she wouldn't like him half so much were he any other way. Even if he does exasperate her sometimes. That's what best friends are like.

Merina rolls onto her back, looks up at the ceiling. "Do you want to continue this?"

"You're going to have to give me a few minutes."

"Not that." She glances at him. "Well, maybe that. I've got duty in two hours, though. I mean _us_."

He closes his eyes. "Thought you just said there isn't an 'us.'"

"No. I said we can't last. At some point, I'm going to have to return to Atlantis and marry someone, and I need you to understand that isn't going to change. We can have this now." She rolls her whole body to face him, slipping her hand under the blanket and onto his hip, where she rakes her fingernails lightly. She smiles as he shivers.

She has rules in mind, and she knows he will agree to them as she places moist kisses at his collarbone and licks up his neck. "This isn't love," she tells him, her breath against his ear. Merina hasn't believed in love since she was five, and she has no intention of starting now.

* * *

They try to remain discreet. They don't arrive at the Tower together. They don't leave together. 

On rare occasions, he travels to Miami, just another muscled guy in dark glasses who frequents her nice apartment overlooking the ocean. Royalty and League status buy her some perks: a good place to live, nods of understanding when she's in and out at odd hours. But they also purchase the bottom-feeding reporters who lurk at the front gate, collecting vids and offering currency for names. So Merina wraps her green-blonde hair into a messy bun, puts on a ratty grey sweater and jeans, dons a pair of glasses, and then she is practically invisible as she comes to his apartment in Detroit.

Sometimes they talk about moving closer. She likes the warmth, though, loves the life in her chosen city. He was raised in his own, has inherited the role of protector here. Neither is going to budge.

Also, he teaches.

Rex has a doctorate in metallurgy, but his expertise is in extraterrestrial alloys, so he never writes the Ph.D. on his resume, and he teaches shop at the local high school. He's on probation, having had to run from too many classes without explanation to save the world. He hasn't had a raise in years. His apartment is neat, if small, and she keeps clothes and a toothbrush there, and she comes in by the back way when she can.

It's a little like dating, but mostly it's like keeping a delicious secret. She believes the others are starting to suspect something. There's a knowing look in Static's eyes, a more exasperated one in Superman's. Kai is too young to understand, or maybe he's better at disguising his own observations. Barda just smiles at her. Merina was half-expecting girl talk, but Barda isn't that kind.

In battles, they are just as determined as ever. They watch each other, but they watch everyone else at the same time, because that's what they do in their family. That's what they have to do.

* * *

The theatre is dark, but he finds her easily in the back row. It's a John Wayne centennial festival in Hub City. His choice; he likes the movies, always has. Even as he sits next to her, he scans the seats to note only a handful of people in the audience. None sit further back than the midpoint of the theatre. 

She's wearing a pale-colored blouse and miniskirt, _her_ choice. She looks bored, and she fidgets with the popcorn until his hand slides up her skirt between her thighs. Tonight features three movies, with an intermission between each. By the middle of the first one, Rex is fighting back the sounds of pleasure, and also a massive case of giggles, because he's had this film memorized since he was eight and he keeps wanting to recite along.

She spends the second movie in his lap. It's _Angel and the Badman_, and this time he can't help mouthing the dialogue with the actors on the screen, until she finds better things for him to do with his lips. They leave during the intermission before the third film begins, back to his place where there will be no more distractions.

* * *

Over dinner, which he prepared after two days of planning he'll never admit to, she tells him Batman has asked her out. He surprises himself by not shredding the roll in his hands to little bits, and instead asks her mildly what she said. 

Merina shrugs and takes a bite of her salad. "I told him I didn't know."

"You know what the Bats are like. Buncha nutjobs."

"He's all right. And this might give me a chance to get to know what he's like without the mask."

"You sound like you've already made up your mind."

"I have. I wasn't asking your permission. I was letting you know."

And suddenly it's awkward, like he's been afraid it was going to be from the beginning. Now they can't talk work, because one of them will mention the Big Bad Bat again, or worse, they'll both try not to mention him.

It's part of their agreement, as tenuous as it is. They're both free to date anyone else. She's told him she won't marry him, can't marry him, and she says she wants them both to enjoy whatever passes for their lives. She says she wants him to date, to find someone, to get married, because she knows that at some point, she will, too. But this is the first time she's said she's going to see someone else, and he tries not to be jealous.

He tries.

She makes an excuse to leave after about twenty minutes, and he's kind of glad. He hasn't had a chance to bring out the dessert he made, a warm apple crumble from his great-grandma's recipe. After she's gone, he takes it from the oven and puts it directly into the refrigerator. He'll leave it in the staff room at work.

* * *

They thwart an alien invasion. 

Vandal Savage starts trouble in India.

He has to grade final exams.

It's a standard month, and Rex is proud of himself for not having spent the entire time thinking about killing Batman. He's not directly avoiding Merina, not even directly avoiding Batman. He does take a bit more pleasure than he should when Batgirl calls the Metro Tower looking for her partner, and he transfers the call directly over, knowing Bats is in what the rest of them refer to as the fish tank.

After a throwdown with Blight, Micron, Barda, Rex and Merina regroup at the Tower for a debriefing. Merina corners him in the training room.

"Are you all right?" she demands.

"What? I'm fine," he says, putting the suit through its end-of-battle paces, ensuring nothing was damaged that he cannot repair.

"I thought you were grazed by a laser blast."

"I wasn't."

"Good." She stands there, watching him.

"What?"

"It's done."

"What's done?" The servomotors in his knee joints are starting to creak. He'll need to spend some time examining them. He already has ideas for improvements; they've been wearing out every four months or so, and he thinks he can double the joint life with the right alterations to the design.

"I'm not seeing him anymore."

He doesn't let himself look at her. "That's too bad."

"There's a girl he's been seeing. Actually, there may be a few."

"Batgirl?"

"I don't think so. She's nice, though. You'd like her."

"I like you."

He didn't mean to say it, but the words are out between them now. It could be worse. She has told him flat out that if he ever tries to use the word "love" that she'll never speak to him again.

"Anyway," she says, and there's a touch of a smile as she says it, "I thought you should know."

* * *

It takes another month, because he is angry with her, and he doesn't want to be angry with her, especially since he has known this is how it would be from the beginning. One evening, she knocks at his door, and she has a greasy bag full of pad thai and spicy noodles, and he invites her inside. 

He doesn't ask if she slept with Batman. He doesn't think she did, not from the way they act around each other, and he doesn't want to know either way. Questions lead to complications, and the best thing about their arrangement is the simplicity: they want, they need, they have.

* * *

Triton's lovely young bride has given birth to a second daughter, and Merina has come for the naming. Her court garb, spun of green sea-silk, fits oddly against her skin, so long accustomed to the clothing of the surface-dwellers. She makes an effort not to pluck at it, shift it to fit in ways underwater fabrics do not. 

Her people stare at her curiously. Her father made friends and allies among the surface-dwellers, spent time among them, but his first and only home was Atlantis, her people his first priority. Merina lives above the sea and she considers all the people of the Earth her priority. She's the reckless daughter, both ambassador and prodigal, and no one quite knows what to make of her, save to bow before her as is her due.

The baby is named Estella, after some long-departed great-grandmother Merina doesn't remember. Even as he cuddles his daughter and breathes her name into her, Triton's face is determined, and Merina knows he still wants a son.

Triton is not their father, and after twenty years their people also don't quite know what to make of _him_.

After the formalities are complete, and the mother and baby allowed back to their bedchamber to nurse and to rest, Merina takes her brother's arm and they stroll the palace grounds. It's nice, being here with him. Triton is many years older than she, and has in some ways been as a second father to her. Their father is listed as Missing in Action in the League files, but Atlantis and his children have long accepted that he is dead. The sea creatures noted his passing as surely as the sky notes darkness without the sun. The League knows it as well, but there have been too many occasions where the lack of a body turned out to be for a good reason, Superman being the most famous case, and Rex's parents being very deliberately the least famous. When she asks Triton's advice, part of her always wonders how different her father's response would have been. She was five when they lost him, old enough to remember him, young enough to idolize him still. Their mother severed most ties with the surface world after that, a trend which Triton continued, and one day when she was fifteen, Merina looked out on her kingdom, then filled a sack with clothing and Spanish coins, and swam to the shore.

Sometimes she doesn't know what to make of herself, either..

They chat about the baby and her older sister, about the kingdom, about her friends above. He watches her face as she talks and she knows she is being observed, although not why.

"So everyone is well," he says finally.

"Yes."

"I have been looking for a suitable husband for you."

She doesn't break her stride. "Good luck."

"If you could give me an estimation of when you plan on returning, I could make arrangements."

"Don't hold your breath."

"What?"

"Sorry. Surface talk. It means, don't expect to see me living down here soon."

"Of course. 'Rina ... " Tri looks uncomfortable. Sometimes he can be a pompous jerk, but mostly, he's her big brother. "You need to stop."

"I'm just walking, Tri."

"Warhawk."

She halts abruptly. "Who have you been talking to?"

"Old family friends. Merina, you have to be careful."

"I'm not stupid, Triton. I know what my duty is."

"So why aren't you doing it? You need to be married. You need to be having children. _Atlantean_ children."

She pulls her hand away from his. "You have an heir now. You don't need me."

"You know that's not true."

"I'm doing good work up there. We save the world. I don't want to give that up. Not yet."

"And you don't want to give him up."

"I've already explained everything to him." She realizes as she says it that she's confirming what Triton wants to know, but it's too late now. "He's fine with it."

"I'm sure he is. What man wouldn't want a whore at his beck and call?"

She strikes him, hard, not with an open-palmed slap like some schoolgirl, but with her entire mass behind the punch, and it sends him back. There's blood on his mouth as he composes himself.

"You need to control your temper," he says.

"_You_ need to watch your tongue."

"I worry about you. And yes, I worry about our family. The rumors get back to me, what our people think about you. They don't trust you. They think you've been contaminated by too much contact with the surface dwellers."

"I'm acting as a liaison between our people and theirs, just as Father did. He understood that the sea and the land are one."

"Father lived here. The people saw him here."

"I'm not going to be Queen. Why do they care where I live?"

"Because you are my sister, and everyone knows I love you as both sister and daughter. They're afraid you'll turn my head away from Atlantis and to the surface. If they found out about your lover, I don't know what they'd do."

"They won't find out unless you tell them."

"Or unless you come home one day with an air-breathing bastard child." His voice drops. "A child you can't assure me won't have wings."

"I can assure you," she says back quietly. "Cross-species genetics. There won't be children. He can't." She swallows. It's not a subject she's ever discussed with Rex, not really, but she's as familiar with his medical records as she is with her own.

The tension in his stance relaxes. "If you're certain."

"I am. And you should trust me more."

"I want to. Give me something to trust."

She sighs. She isn't going to get out of this without yielding some token. "I'll meet the men you're considering marrying me off to."

"If you don't like them, just say the word."

Merina has already decided she won't like them, but she allows herself to be presented, makes herself smile, shakes hands and listens, bored, to genealogies, and she thinks that returning to the world of air and sunlight cannot come soon enough.

* * *

Her name is Judy, and she teaches music, and she likes apple crumble. He notices her the way he notices all the other women at the school: pretty or not, young or not, single or not. He's finally off probation, in part by a convenient appearance by Superman at just the right time; it helps to have friends in high places, even if some do like to reminisce at length about hanging out with Rex's parents back in the good old days before everything went to hell. At some point, in some conversation, Superman is going to say "They just don't make apocalypses like they used to," and Rex is going to have to leave the room and hit something. He's sure of it. 

Being off probation doesn't mean he can do what he wants around school. He's careful to be on time, pick up whatever slack he can for the other teachers. When Mr. Freedman was out after he slipped a disc in his back, to the surprise of the rest of the staff, Rex set a project for his shop students and took over four of the teacherless math classes for the whole six weeks. Now the rest of the staff looks at him differently, and he kind of likes it.

Judy looked at him differently _before_ the math thing, and that makes her special. So does the fact that she meets all his young, single and pretty qualifiers, and at the same time, she still likes him. At the end of year picnic, they start chatting about potato salad and end up talking about all sorts of subjects. She tells him that her dad was white, and while he obviously can't tell her everything about his family, he can talk about some things with her, how people make assumptions and picking which arguments to have and which to let go, and it's nice.

She's nice.

Judy doesn't comment about how small his apartment is, because hers isn't any bigger. She brings over records after she finds out he owns an actual turntable, and they spend hours just listening to the ticks and pops coming through with the rest. She says digital recordings are wonderful for quality, but they kill part of the music's soul. There's a richness to the sounds, she tells him, and she lays her head on his chest as they sit in his darkened living room.

He hasn't slept with Judy, but when he's been seeing her for more than two months, he knows he will, and he tells Merina over the phone. He'd tell her in person if he could, but it's hurricane season, and while she says she can handle things, she's constantly busy in her own city. Her voice is warm on the line, and she tells him to have a good time.

He wasn't asking permission, except that he was, and she's granted it to him. He's always gotten that their relationship isn't quite the norm, but he's starting to realize it's a lot more fucked up than he's allowed himself to ponder.

Judy asks about the scars, the big ones on his back and the smaller ones all over. He's managed to deflect her questioning before this, helped along by a current lack of both big disasters and minor crime waves taking his time and attention mysteriously away. He opens his mouth to tell her, and instead a lie pops out: the old story about the dog, skiing accidents. She doesn't push.

They make sure not to arrive at school at the same time. The rumor mill there is astonishingly active without help, although, this might be something he _wants_ to help, since the biggest rumor he's overheard about himself says he's gay. It's the food he brings, and the women they don't see him with, and the weird hours he keeps. Rex lets Judy set the pace and the tone, lets her decide if she wants to hold hands in the hallways, or kiss in the stairwells. He likes not having to plan out a date based on thousands of miles of travel, or scheduled around watches at the Metro Tower.

He doesn't tell Judy his secret.

He kisses her, he touches her, he moves inside of her in his bed and in hers, but he shies away from talk of family, and he doesn't tell her why he has to leave suddenly at odd times. He's afraid to ask her what she thinks is going on, what she thinks he's hiding.

League work starts heating up. Kobra is causing trouble, and he's on the run between one job and the other. His place is a mess, but that's fine since he almost never gets a chance to sleep there anymore. He naps at the Watchtower and tries not to fall asleep during class.

He's been seeing Judy for eight months when he comes home on a rare evening free to discover she's cleaned his apartment for him. She sits in his living room, everything straightened and dusted and polished, and there are three small outfits on the couch, and a toothbrush.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" she asks.

"Old girlfriend." He doesn't say "Ex."

"So you won't mind if I throw them away."

"I'll give them back to her," he says, and he realizes he's caught.

"You still see her?"

"Sometimes." Almost every day, lately.

"Tell me about her."

"I can't."

"Just like you can't tell me about where it is you've been going lately." He stays silent. "Rex, what are you into? Because I can handle it. Drugs? You don't look like a splicer. You can tell me."

And he thinks maybe he can. He can tell Judy, and bring her into his world. Tell her his other name. Tell her about his mother, and about his father, and about living in the shadows of two legends and having to pretend to be someone he isn't. He could put that weight on her, the burden of those secrets.

But he likes her too much for that.

"Judes, I can't. Sorry."

"All right," she says, and she stands, getting her purse. "Call me when you're ready to be honest."

He stares at the closed door for a long time, then he puts Merina's things back where they belong.


	2. Chapter 2

The Signs of Air and Water (2/3)  
a Justice League Unlimited story  
by Merlin Missy  
Copyright 2005  
PG-15

* * *

Chapter Two

* * *

The low-rent neighborhood and the filthy front door make this place look like a dive, but the restaurant has the best sushi in three states. Conveniently, it's also on the other side of town, away from where people might know his face. She wore a wide-brimmed hat when she met him, but she set it aside as soon as they were seated, and now he resists the urge to brush her hair away from her face as she deftly moves the food around on her tray. 

He dated in high school, not much, and again in college, a bit more. This is the closest they've come to anything resembling what he considers a real date. The restaurant isn't crowded, and they have a booth in the back, but they are still circumspect about references to work.

Instead, he tells her jokes. She tells him about the last movie she saw. He wonders how regular people manage to make conversation.

She excuses herself to the ladies' room before the check comes. The server puts down the bill, and moments later, slides into the seat across from him. It takes him a quarter of a second to realize there are in fact two different people, another half-second to establish his new companion isn't a threat, and a full three seconds further to identify him.

"You could have called," Rex says, pulling out his wallet and handing a card to the server, who is still standing there waiting. Merina usually insists on buying when they eat out; he likes getting the tab when she doesn't notice or can't object. "How long have you been," he glances at the departing server, "in town?"

"We got in this morning, and we did call. Check your messages." Rex curses to himself; he hasn't been home yet today.

His father leans back in the booth, stretching out a bit, casting a careful eye around the dining area. Part of him looks perfectly comfortable here, on his home world, in his city, in one of his favorite restaurants, but Rex knows the other signs to look for. There are many ways in which his father is more of an alien to this place than his mother is. They've lived off-world for ten years, ostensibly for her benefit, but really for John's and for Rex's.

"Where are you guys staying?"

"Tower."

"You could stay with me."

"You don't have the room, and anyway, it looks like you have company."

"Dad."

"I'll have you know, I'm resisting a ton of crude remarks right now about the two of you at a sushi place."

"Dad!" There are few things in the world more mortifying than having parents. Having parents with an active sex life is, sadly, one of those things.

A grin. "Sorry. Anyway, I thought all the Atlantis-types were vegetarians."

"Some are. She's not." Merina is occasionally ashamed of her own eating habits, but she says if she's going to eat meat, she might as well not make it preferential to land animals only.

"Mr. Stewart?" Both their heads turn, but the server is looking at his father. "Your order is ready."

Dad nods at her, then casts what he probably doesn't think is a patronizing smile back at Rex. "Your mom wanted ebi for dinner." He slides out of the booth, then grasps Rex's hand. "You and Merina come by the Tower later."

Rex glances at the back, where the restroom doors are behind a partition, but she still hasn't come out. "The others don't really know," he whispers.

"Yes, they do," Dad says, and bends over and gives him a quick kiss on the head. "I'm going to go before the food gets, I don't know, deader maybe." He grabs the bag from the counter, waves to the cook, and leaves, just as Merina comes back to the table.

"You're blushing," she says.

"My folks say 'hi.' And they'd like to see both of us later."

Her eyes widen.

* * *

The team is always changing. Members come and go, obligations to home towns and home worlds shift. Some get married. A few have kids. Others join up. So when Micron announces he's going to take a leave of absence to spend time helping his wife with the baby, they give him a warm sendoff with promises of babysitting help. And when Cassandra appears on the front doorstep a week later and informs them she's going to join the League, it's not as big of a surprise as it probably was when Lobo did the same thing fifty years ago. 

Her hair is golden, not literally but close, and she can bench-press a tank. Kai is smitten.

No one has the heart to point out that she doesn't notice, and none of them know just how to bring up the subject of the Greek pantheon and why getting romantically involved with that crowd is one of the worst ideas in the history of very bad ideas. He brings her flowers, and makes interesting ring constructs to get her to laugh. Her laugh is a lot like Queen Diana's, and she has taken on the mantle of Wonder Woman. When Superman contacts Diana to ask her about the new arrival, Merina watches from behind, and notes a kind of sadness in her glance, a hesitation in her voice as she says, yes, she knows this girl and believes she would be an asset to the League.

She stays.

It's nice to have a younger female in the Tower. Merina loves Barda like an aunt, but as naive as she is, Cassandra makes a much better friend for whispering secrets and going out to clubs. Terry watches her, sometimes as much as Kai does. Merina has met Terry's girlfriend, though; she wonders if he's told her yet.

Cassie asks about the stars. Golden stars are embedded in one wall of the entrance to the tower. Some have names, some just initials, and she tries to understand as Merina names each one in the sad constellation: those who have fallen, those who are missing and presumed dead. She pauses at her father's star, brushing her fingers across it like a kiss.

The following day, Merina is with Barda in the training room, practicing. They watch as Kai follows Cassandra past the doorway. Barda snorts: "Save us from fire, flood, and Green Lanterns in love."

* * *

Batman invites them all to the wedding, knowing most of them won't be able to attend. Kai says he'll send a gift, then sighs a little when Cassie announces she's going to wear a wig and go anyway. Barda gets thin-lipped and wishes her best for the happy couple; Scott Free has had a star for over ten years. Superman, in suit and glasses, will go and cover the event for the _Planet Online_. Already the gossip magazines are enjoying the little sheen of celebrity that follows the Wayne heir, but the reputable news sites are also interested. 

Rex isn't into weddings, and he kind of still hates Batman, but Merina talks him into it by showing him the slim black dress she's planning on wearing. Wayne Manor has plenty of hide-holes, aside from the infamous one in the basement, and she whispers they can slip away during the reception to find adark and quiet spot and make like the Bats do.

Rex doesn't particularly want to know what the Bats do.

Merina is on the guest list as a VIP, the kind of society girl Old Man Wayne would have wooed in his younger days. Rex arrives with Cassie and meets Virgil and his wife there. Merina sits with them, while Superman sits near the front with Wayne. He recognizes some of the faces in the crowd as people who are on the guest list merely to _be_ on the guest list and score points with the old man. He doesn't recognize any other costumes. When Terry and his girl take their vows, Merina slips her hand into his without looking at him.

The bride's gorgeous. Her makeup doesn't smear when she cries, holding her new husband or hugging the gaggle of girlfriends around her. Rex compliments her dress when he shakes her hand in the receiving line, just as he's been instructed to do. She stares at him a moment, as if trying to place him, and he knows that she knows who her lover is and who his friends are.

Rex rapidly discovers the reception isn't going to be nearly as much fun as he's hoped. There are security guards quietly stationed at points around the Manor to guide errant guests back to the party and away from Mr. Wayne's personal effects. He could take any of them, even unarmed, but there's no point.

The only person he knows at his table is Cassie. Virgil and Daisy are at the same table as Superman and Merina. There are two open spots, so Cassie drags him over to their table, introduces herself to people she already knows, and joins them anyway.

"And you are?" Merina asks him politely, extending her hand.

"Her babysitter," he says, and everyone laughs. The food's great, and the wine is a good year. Bruce always had the best taste in everything.

There is dancing. Rex hates dancing. Cassie jumps up to join the party, and with a quick glance back, Merina goes with her. The Graysons and the Drakes, the _other_ Wayne heirs, are seated two tables away, and it isn't long before Superman and Virgil are talking with them in low voices. Old times, he's sure. Virgil's wife starts a conversation with Mrs. Grayson and Mrs. Drake, possibly comparing notes on how much it sucks to marry into superheroing families.

No one is talking to Rex.

The room is dimmed in a classy enough way, lit with candles and recessed lamps, but the darkness is getting to him. He takes off his sunglasses so he isn't completely blind.

"This seat taken?" One of the bridesmaids plops down beside him. The deep maroon of her gown, which makes the other bridesmaids looked peaked, compliments her nicely. She smiles at his notice, and says, "I suppose everyone tells you that you've got your mom's eyes, huh?"

"Dammit," he says, and fumbles out the glasses again.

She places her hand on his to stop him. "I don't think anyone who doesn't already know is going to notice."

Something about her voice, the tone and the air of mirth. He draws with his finger on the table: BG. She nods.

"Call me Maxine."

"Rex."

"I know. The old man has a file on you."

"Thought he didn't share those files."

She smiles, showing her teeth. "He thought it was better encrypted than it was."

So. Batgirl. Batman's partner for over five years, now on her own in Blüdhaven. He met her in costume twice, talked a few times on the monitor. He wonders how many of the others here tonight know who she is.

"How'd you meet Terry and," he thinks fast, "Dana?"

"High school. We go way back." She smooths her hand over her dress. He wonders if she ever pictured herself in the white gown beside Terry, with Dana in the red. There's no way he's ever going to ask.

She smiles at him. "So, why aren't you out dancing?"

"I'm not one for cutting a rug."

She stares at him. "Huh?"

"I don't dance." One of the many problems of being raised by people who are slightly displaced in time is that he sometimes forgets and uses expressions that are over seventy years out of date. It's like having been raised by his grandparents. The fact that sometimes he catches himself thinking in Thanagarian doesn't help.

Maxine taps her foot in time to the music. It's the newer music, which he can't stand; another problem, having grown up listening to long-dead singers and long-forgotten bands.

She asks him what he does, and he tells her. He's getting used to making small talk, less so with people who already know his secret identity. He doesn't have to watch himself as much. Maxine is in charge of the network at the D.A.'s office in Blüdhaven. That D.A. is currently telling a joke to Superman, friendly arms spread wide in what's sure to be an interesting punchline.

They talk for almost an hour, while he glances around from time to time to see what the others are doing. She finally yawns and stretches and stands. "I need to get back home. Here," and she digs out a pen from her purse, leans over to write on something. He thinks this is so cliché, that a woman he met at a wedding is going to give him her number on a cocktail napkin, but she hands him her business card instead, with a number written on the back. "Dr. Maxine Gibson," it says, and he thanks her as she waves and walks away to say her goodbyes to the bride and groom.

He leaves a few minutes later with a quiet nod to Virgil, who is deep in conversation with Drake.

At home, he removes his suit, hangs it in the closet, and takes a long, hot shower. When he exits, Merina is already reposing on his bed, still wearing the black dress. Her hair is mussed, and she smells like candlesmoke and she tastes like Bruce's good wine when he kisses her. She is frantic for him tonight, desperate in her need. He's not sure who she's thinking about as she bites his jaw, and he doesn't want to know if this is what Bats do as he yanks the dress up against her velvet-soft thighs.

* * *

Triton is dead. 

The entire world has tilted, and even the stars are improperly aligned, for her brother is gone forever.

She spends an hour, more, staring at the light glimmering from the star that bears her father's name. Another King of Atlantis has passed, another two children are left fatherless, albeit both daughters this time. Their mother will act as regent until Erissa is old enough to assume the throne.

Their mother doesn't want to act as regent. She doesn't know how.

Triton is not going to summon her home. He is not going to greet her at the shore with arms spread wide and face beaming with joy at the sight of her. He is not going to fills the palace with his booming laugh, or lift his pretty wife into the air, or tickle his children under their chins, ever again.

Merina sobs, and Rex just holds her, there in front of the wall.

"I'm going back," she says. "They need me."

He kisses the top of her head, squeezes her more tightly. It's the first time he's kissed her in the Tower, and neither of them gives a damn who sees.

* * *

Erissa and Estella wear matching black dresses. Estella has just learned to swim, and clutches her sister's hand, innocent of all that is happening around her. Merina escorts her brother's body to the resting place of all the rulers of Atlantis, speaks the traditional words, stays with him for hours afterwards, holding his still hand. 

When she returns to the palace, she commands the nursemaids to take the girls to their playroom, and she goes into private conference with Adela. Her brother's widow is thin and bent, the weight of the seven seas on her shoulders. She made an appropriate queen, but she does not know how to rule alone in her child's name. Merina has been trained to govern since her birth. Both are sensible women.

Adela will remain regent, will have the authority to countermand anything Merina orders. Merina will be Queen in all but name and that one fact. Erissa will stay beside her, learning as much as she can, the Queen-apparent but not yet sitting on her own throne. Merina will wield the sceptre and wear the crown.

She needs a consort. She needs heirs. Knowing it would come to this does not make the moment any easier to bear.

Triton never stopped looking for suitable mates for her. She reads through his notes, finds three names from decent families, summons them to the palace individually.

The first is intelligent and cold. The second is brainless but kind.

The third is brighter than the second, but does not give her his full attention. She knows his name, cannot place why he is familiar. She asks him about his father, and then understands why she knows of the man. He too lived on the surface, working with those on land to protect the world from all threats, and his son has spent time above. Garth's son is not the man his father was, but "he has stood on the sand," as their people say and where they use it as an insult, to Merina it is as close as she will find to a soulmate here in the depths of the sea. He knows his duty as she knows hers.

She contacts the League and, thank Neptune, Kai answers.

"His name is Cerdian. The wedding is tomorrow. I understand no one will be able to come. I miss you all. I'll try to visit soon."

She names an ambassador, the role she herself has played these long, wonderful years. A distant relative, male. She allows him to live at home, but insists he work together with the World Assembly and with the League, and she watches him go with a sadness she does not allow to shine in her features.

And then she dons her wedding garb.

* * *

There's a knock at his door, and Rex is unsurprised to see Terry there, holding a bottle. He is more startled to see Kai with him. Kai doesn't normally drink, even though he's been old enough for a few years now. 

They sit in his cramped living room, passing the alcohol around. They don't actually mention her by name. While Rex is still sober enough to care, he wonders if Dana will yell at Terry for coming home drunk or not coming home at all. He also wonders who's guarding the night, because they told him it was being taken care of, and that meant they told someone else, maybe a few someones, of their plans for the evening.

Kai sings a little after just a few drinks, and then passes out on the couch, where they cover him with a blanket.

Rex and Terry talk for most of the night, about old girlfriends, about parents, about everything. Rex doesn't hate him any more, not even a little. They're never going to be good friends, but tonight, they understand each other perfectly.

In the morning, the three of them stumble out for eggs and coffee at the diner down the street. Kai has his hat on and isn't in uniform, and it's like they're just three guys out after a night on the town. Rex is a little worried to realize, as the waiter brings them a stack of toast, that Kai and Terry are probably his best friends.

He isn't looking for friends. He isn't sure _what_ he's looking for. He works, and he patrols, and he fights, and he goes to bed and gets up a few hours later and he does it all again. Up until a few days ago, he had someone in his life who understood what it's like to be him, to walk (or fly, or float) in two worlds and not really belong to either one. Terry has found a way to blend his lives, and Kai is always the Lantern in the same way Rex's dad was when it was his ring.

The memory comes upon him suddenly: himself as a child, watching his parents soaring and swooping high above him in combat maneuvers, the desire sour on his tongue as he ached to join them in the sky. He's spent the rest of his life trying to catch up.

He takes a long drink of his coffee, listens to his friends talking. It's probably selfish, to wish this life on anyone else, wish this kind of impossible _want_ on someone who doesn't own it already by choice or destiny.

Rex is feeling very selfish this morning.


	3. Chapter 3

The Signs of Air and Water (3/3)  
a Justice League Unlimited story  
by Merlin Missy  
Copyright 2005  
PG-15

* * *

Chapter Three

* * *

He's ducked out for five years in a row, but once again, Rex's turn has rolled around to chaperone the Senior Prom. He has to get his suit cleaned, and going through the pockets, he finds Maxine's card. 

On a whim, he calls her. She tells him she's busy, but takes his number to call him back. He hangs up, considers throwing away the card, then drops it by the phone instead while he runs out to the cleaner's. When he gets back, there's a message on his machine. He calls her back. They talk for two hours.

She calls him the next night, and this call is only for half an hour, but he feels good when they finally say goodbye. The night after that is prom. It's just as bad as he expected. When he gets home, there's another message on his machine, and his night gets a little better as he listens to her talk about her day. It's late, but he calls back anyway, waking her up.

They talk on the phone until almost dawn.

She agrees to meet him for drinks, and suggests a chic place in Blüdhaven. He spends a little more time than is probably healthy picking out his outfit, settling on a dark mock turtleneck and black slacks. Maxine is already there when he arrives, and she's a perfect professional from her tailored suit to the shoes on her feet. She smiles when she sees him, lighting up the whole room.

Drinks turn into dinner, which turns into a stroll around Blüdhaven at hours that would worry any couple who isn't them.

He's relaxed around Maxine. She knows jokes he hasn't heard, and stories about the same people he knows. She's met his family but she's one of the Bats, and she gets that family is just where you start out, not who you are. She's got a great smile, and she's smart, and he doesn't have to hide the fact that he is, too.

They patrol together a few times, first in her city, then in his. He's used to working alone, or else with a large group. Partner work requires different tactics, different attention. He's less the vigilante type than she. Still, the thud of skulls cracking together is universal, and while she can glide through the air in her suit, his jetpack can zoom past her and reach a perp before she's got a batarang out.

He kisses her at the end of their third date, a gentle press rather than a hungry burn. She kisses him the next night after they stop an armed robbery, and he's surprised. He doesn't push her away, but he doesn't respond either.

Two weeks after their first date, he calls her and she tells him she has to call him back later. Later turns into the following day, a timespan which drives him to distraction and almost costs him a finger on the laser-lathe he oh so cleverly is showing his students.

"Are we on for tomorrow?" he asks, when she finally calls.

"I've got plans," she says. He knows those words and that tone.

"Why?" he asks dully.

She's got no room in her life for bullshit. It's why he likes her. "Because I think we're getting serious."

"And you're scared."

"No. I think we'd be great together. We already are great together. I like you. It wouldn't be hard to fall in love with you." Her voice catches.

"I like you, too," he says. He isn't going to try to mumble his way through saying any phrase that contains the word "love."

"I know you do. But if we get together, I want to know I'm the one you're thinking about."

"You are. You would be. Max … "

"Call me in a few months. Call me in a year. I'll be here when you're over her."

He wants to say something, wants to tell her they can work on it, that he's ready.

"Goodbye, Rex," she says, and the line goes dead. He hangs up the phone. Then he gets the armor ready and goes to the Tower. He wants to practice, wants to be around the rest of the freak show he calls his friends. He wants to call his father.

His mother picks up instead. He doesn't know what to say to her that won't sound like he's still a little kid, whining about a toy he wants. Dad would understand. Dad dated someone new after Mom broke his heart. Aunt Mari is still an emeritus member of the JLU, which means she can call whenever she wants to check up on her own son now that the baby is older and Micron's back from his leave. Rex is polite to her, and she is the same to him, and he and Micron try not to talk about how close they came to being brothers.

He doesn't think his mother is going to get it.

Mom waits for him to speak, nudging him with questions: how's he eating, how's work, how are the rest of their friends. He asks about her health, and she talks for too long about his father's cholesterol level. He wants to tell her everything and wait for her to make it better, but he can't find the words, so he tells her he loves her and ends the transmission.

* * *

With her duties, and a touch of cowardice she didn't previously know she possessed, Merina hasn't seen his face, even masked, in over two years. She can't hide her startled expression when he answers, and she doesn't try to hide her smile. He returns it, but guardedly. She _can_ disguise the pain that brings, and she does. 

It's a status report, nothing more, but she longs for stories of her friends. He tells her Barda has a new beau, finally, and to everyone's surprise, so does Kai. He doesn't say so, but she can tell he's agitated about Kai's boyfriend. Gear's first grandchild is due any day. Bruce keeps getting older and grouchier. Everyone else is the same.

"How've you been?" she asks him.

"I'm all right. How's Nerdy?"

"Cerdian," she says crossly, then sees his grin. "He's well," comes out automatically, and then she remembers who it is on the other end of the line. "He's gone back to his estate. He doesn't really like Atlantis proper." Cerdian doesn't like a lot of things, and while he is kind to her, Merina knows she is on that list.

There had been someone else for him as well when she informed him they were to be married, and the idiot never said until after the wedding. Now she has a husband who dwells an ocean away from her and who has a mistress he'd prefer to make his wife, and she has a niece to groom for the throne, and she has a kingdom perpetually angry with the surface world, and she has to work all day every day simply to keep things from spinning out of control.

She doesn't tell him these things in a play for sympathy. She tells him because she knows he cares, and because these are the things she _can_ tell him. Some things can't be spoken over a monitor, even via a secured line, and some things she can't say at all. She won't tell him that Cerdian returns to the palace at regular intervals to perform the one duty a consort to the royal line actually _needs_ to fulfill.

When they finally break the transmission, she stares at the empty screen for a long time, wondering if he's doing the same.

* * *

The ambassador from Atlantis is kind of a dork, but most of his interactions are with the World Assembly, so they only have to put up with him during the occasional summit or visit. He always makes a half-sneer whenever he comes to the Metro Tower, the one that says it isn't half so fine as the palace. Superman has long since stopped trying to explain that it's not a palace, it's a headquarters. 

Rex suspects the guy is brighter than he's acting. However, he doesn't care. When Virgil "accidentally" shakes his hand with a charge still activated, sending the ambassador across the room, he's not the only one who has to hide his chuckle with a cough.

Virgil helps him up, smirking in the way only someone with a beard can get away with properly, and apologizes. The ambassador dusts himself off, accepts the apology, and offers greetings from Queen Erissa and Princess Merina. Atlantis will be making a full return to its position within the Assembly. At some point, Atlantis will also be sending one of her warriors with a petition for membership into the League. Had both proclamations, stated with enough pomposity to fill half the hot air balloons in New Mexico, not been made every single time the ambassador met with the League, Rex would be more impressed.

The ambassador continues, that, although they have not inquired regarding the matter, the princess was safely delivered of her son three weeks before, and at his naming ceremony, his mother gave him her own father's name.

Rex hasn't been in a room with her in three years, but he spoke with her last week and she never said a word. There isn't enough air in the room right now, not to breathe, not to think.

After His Pompousness leaves, Superman takes him aside and informs Rex he isn't going to go on patrol tonight, in Metropolis, Detroit, or anywhere else. It's not exactly an order, but it's Superman, and Rex nods obediently. He's got a bad headache and he's tired, and if he finds himself in a fight with a big bad or even a pickpocket, there's going to be bloodshed.

* * *

The ambassador invites them to the ceremony for Queen Erissa's full ascension to her throne. Kai attends with Micron and Superman, while Rex finds other things to do that don't involve the ocean. 

He's in the workshop, tweaking the armor, trying not to think about anything but the polished metal under his hands.

"Hey," she says. It's like a lightning bolt straight into his guts.

"Hey," he replies, turning around casually. The effect is spoiled when he brushes against his tools, sending everything clattering to the floor. She bends down to help him gather them.

She's changed. She'd already reached her full growth before she left, but there's a firmness to her shoulders and a tight look on her face that weren't part of her before. He thinks her hips might be a touch wider, too, but he's not nearly stupid enough to comment.

"You look good," he says instead, putting the last of the tools back on the table.

"You too."

"You came back with Superman and everybody?"

She nods. "We got in an hour ago. Arthur's napping in my old quarters."

"How long are you staying?" he asks, keeping his face to the suit.

"A while. Two, maybe three decades." He freezes. She continues: "Erissa considers me an advisor, but it's her kingdom now. She has to be the one who rules it, not her surface-tainted aunt."

"'Tainted?'"

"There isn't a person in Atlantis who doesn't think I've spent too much time above. If I'd set foot on the shore while I was ruling, there would have been civil war. And now I'm no longer acting as the Queen and I can go where I please." Her hand is on his forearm, one of the few places his flesh shows through when he's in costume. They both notice this at the same time, but she doesn't move her hand.

He watches her for a long moment. "You're married," he tells her at last, and gently removes her hand.

"My people don't allow divorce. And my husband has already had one child by his mistress since Arthur was born."

"I'm not going to be a part of this. I don't want to be your safety date, and I really don't want to fall in love with someone who's married to someone else."

"You're not my safety, you idiot." He can't see tears, but he hears them in her voice. "You're my standard. You're the one that everyone else in my life has to measure up to."

"That's your dad," he replies, more harshly than he intends.

"I used to think that, too. Then I started having to rule my damned kingdom, and I was so mad at him, and at Triton too, for dying and leaving me that mess. And Neptune help me, every day, I'd find myself thinking, 'Dad, you son of a bitch. If you were half the man Rex is, you'd have found a way to stay alive.'"

"Right," he says, turning away again.

"You don't have to believe me," she says. "You don't have to do anything. I just wanted you to know that I was back."

"Why _did_ you come back?"

"Because this is where I belong." She doesn't say which "where" she means: on the surface, in the Watchtower, with him. He thinks maybe she means all three.

He sighs. If she stays, he's going to be drawn back into her. Her life, her world, her rules. Just like before.

"You brought Arthur?"

"He's my son. He goes where I go."

"Nerdian can't be thrilled about that."

"Cerdian hasn't tried to see him since he was born. He can come to the shore if he wants to see him now." She takes his hand again. "Come on. Come see what I made."

She leads him back to her quarters. A little boy, blond down on his head, slumbers deeply in her bed. He looks so much like his mother it hurts.

"Cute kid," he whispers.

"I'm fond of him," she whispers back, and shuts the door.

In the corridor, they stand silently, watching each other. The spell is finally broken when Cassandra walks by and spies her. She talks too loudly when she hugs Merina and welcomes her back, and Arthur wakes up crying. His mother comforts him, and Rex watches as the toddler drifts back to sleep.

Rex hasn't thought about children, at least not in relation to himself. Thanks to his heritage, he knows he can never father a child of his own. It occurs to him, not for the first time, that Merina knows that, too.

* * *

Merina's old quarters become Arthur's room. She wants to return to Miami, but Arthur is safer here at the Tower, and there's always someone around to keep an eye on him while she's off saving the world again. She moves into Rex's quarters, which is just as well as his room is next door to hers, and he doesn't live at the Tower anyway. 

Everyone assumes they're sleeping together again, but they're not, and they haven't. One evening Kai agrees to watch Arthur all night, so Merina goes to Rex's apartment with a stop-off at the Thai restaurant first. She buys his favorites and her own, brings them to his place. He's not home, but she still has his key. She brings the food in, carefully storing it away in the refrigerator for later.

Then she takes off her clothes, hangs them up neatly in his closet, and slips between his sheets.

When he discovers her there, he stands in the doorway and stares.

"We're not doing this again. I can't. I can't follow the rules any more."

"Rules change. No more seeing other people. No more hiding. But we're still not getting married."

"Merina." He sits on the edge of his bed. "I don't know if I can survive being in love with you."

"Then I'll be in love for both of us," she says primly, and she trails kisses across his jaw and into his mouth. When he doesn't move, she thinks she's gone too far at last, that she has broken the final thin thread holding their friendship together.

And then he grabs her arms, and presses her hungrily back onto the pillows, and it is as if they have never been parted at all.

* * *

Someone new has moved to Miami. He wears a mask and stays on the land, and he seems to be in the vigilante camp more than the crusading superhero camp. The League keeps an eye on him, and Merina decides that the Metropolis seaport is a reasonable base of operations. Detroit keeps its hero. 

Arthur begins kindergarten at the same school Rex attended. It's pricey, but Atlantean gold buys them a freedom from too many questions just as Wayne Enterprises cashier's cheques bought that same lack of inquiry when Rex was small. Merina, under the name "Marie Seaborn," receives regular reports from Arthur's teacher.

"A beautiful boy," she says. "Very smart. Regularly leads the other children in the class. Kind. Excellent swimmer. Needs to work on tying his shoes." The school counselor speaks to all the children at least once per term, but she has no concerns. Her report says he has told her about his family, that he has a man he refers to as his father, and a man he calls "Dad." He seems to be as well-adjusted about this fact as any other child she has encountered from what the counselor mistakenly believes to be a broken home rather than a fixed one.

In the first grade, Arthur starts taking a notebook to school. In the margins, he draws detailed pictures of seashells and atomic structures and finches. He only gets angry during class once, when the teacher reads them a story about a magic ring, and he insists that's not how they work at all because his grandad said so and his uncle showed him and lies are bad. That earns him a note home. Merina explains that, yes, lies are bad but sometimes they can't always share the whole truth. She asks him to apologize. He does, eventually.

On the first day of second grade, the teacher goes around the room asking the students what they want to do when they grow up. Arthur tells her that he wants to fly.

* * *

The End

* * *


End file.
